Fifth Christmas and mother's search continues
By Heath Hooper/The Sedalia Democrat, Sedalia, Mo.
Sunday, December 23, 2007 10:58 AM CST
HOLTS SUMMIT, Mo. -- Christmas is a hard time for Marianne Asher-Chapman.
Her house looks festive enough -- reindeer decorations, a tree, stockings. But those will be gone as soon as the holiday's over.
This will be the fifth Christmas Chapman has celebrated since her daughter, Angie Yarnell, went missing.
On Christmas Day, as she has every year since Yarnell's disappearance, Chapman will take the present she bought for her daughter and place it in a special trunk.
That trunk's a treasure trove, should her daughter ever come knocking on her door, Chapman said. It's got gifts and mementos ranging from four years of Christmas and birthday presents to the ashes of Blossom, Yarnell's beloved boxer.
But Chapman doubts that her daughter will ever get those gifts.
Chapman last spoke with her daughter for 16 minutes on Oct. 20, 2003. Up to that point, the mother and daughter talked often, sometimes for hours at a time. Chapman's husband, Tommy, joked that Yarnell would call just to get her mother out of cleaning up after dinner, Chapman said.
On Nov. 1, 2003, the family gathered to celebrate the birthday of Yarnell's niece and Chapman's granddaughter, Samantha.
Chapman hadn't spoken to her daughter in days and was concerned, but expected her to roll into the driveway for the party. The two had spoken previously about the gift Yarnell had bought for Samantha.
"All day, I kept looking out in the driveway, looking for Angie," Chapman said.
By 5 p.m., Chapman again tried to call her daughter, leaving a message that she was going to show up on her doorstep early in the morning if she didn't turn up soon.
Two hours later, a familiar vehicle turned into the driveway. But instead of her daughter, Mike Yarnell, Angie Yarnell's husband of three years, got out with the couple's two dogs.
Mike Yarnell entered the home and told the family he hadn't seen his wife for days, she said. According to Chapman, he said he suspected his wife took off with another man, but even then Chapman didn't think the story added up.
Yarnell wouldn't leave without her dogs, she said. They were like children to her.
And so began the Chapman's four-year-long quest to find her daughter. It's been like a roller coaster, she said, but getting it out of the gate was one of the more difficult decisions she had to make.
Angie Yarnell, 28 at the time of her disappearance, lived in Morgan County, so Chapman traveled to the Morgan County Sheriff's Department to fill out a missing person's report.
She was nervous about it, she said, afraid it might upset or embarrass her daughter when she turned up.
But Angie Yarnell wasn't the type to just pick up and leave, Chapman said. They were good friends, and she wouldn't have left without contacting her.
Still, Chapman knows all mothers say that.
Since then, Chapman's gone everywhere she could, checked every lead. Every time a body part washes up, there's a new round of phone calls to get the details, to make sure. Having a body, even a piece, would bring some closure, she said. Not knowing is hard.
She's on her 10th spiral notebook of letters to her daughter, and sometimes wonders if her daughter's reading them over her shoulder.
One can never know what it's like to be the parent of a missing child until you are one, she said.
Chapman remembers walking through Yarnell's neighborhood in Ivy Bend looking for her daughter. It was a surreal experience, she said, describing seeing what she thought was a skull, only to have it turn out to be a bleached-out turtle shell.
She had a shrine built, but had to put it away. You have to back away after a while, she said, but she's found other ways -- a tattoo, a special garden -- to honor her daughter.
The downhill slopes on the roller coaster can be rough. She once received a card purporting to be from her daughter. It fooled her for a few days, she said, before she realized the handwriting was wrong.
Rumors abound when a person is missing, and not all of them are kind. She once received a communication that her daughter would never be found because she'd been fed to pigs.
Psychics have tried to help, one traveling from Kentucky and staying for three days on her own dime, Chapman said. But nothing's come of it.
Her family -- Tommy, Samantha and son Eric -- has been a strong source of support. Especially Samantha. She's the only one allowed to look in the trunk, and then only with her Grandma.
Angie Yarnell's biological father hasn't shown much interest in his daughter's disappearance so far as she knows, Chapman said, but the two weren't close.
In addition to her family, Chapman finds solace in Missouri Missing, a non-profit support and lobbying group she started with friend Peggy Florence.
The group's mission is "to unite as one voice for our missing, create a support network for the loved ones of all missing persons and to educate and create awareness for the families of all missing persons," according to its literature.
Like Chapman, Florence is the parent of a missing child, although this will be Florence's first Christmas as such. Her adult daughter, Jasmine Haslag, went missing June 18. The two met while Florence was waiting on the side of the road as cadaver dogs searched for her daughter's body, Chapman said.
Missouri Missing's an active group. Chapman's phone lights up with calls from members of the group, from messages that Florence's DNA was entered into a national database to calls from the group's board members.
The group members hope to increase awareness, both in the public and in legislation, about the myriad problems with missing adults, Chapman said.
Thousands of bodies are unclaimed and unidentified in morgues, she said, some destined for cremation. There needs to be a way to quickly connect an unclaimed body with one of the thousands of missing people nationwide, if indeed a connection can be made, Chapman said.
Getting authorities interested in a missing adult can be difficult as well, she said. There are no Amber Alerts for adults, and grown-ups don't have to tell anyone when they're ready for a new life.
For Chapman, this year has seen developments. In November, Mike Yarnell was named a "person of interest" in his wife's disappearance. But Mike Yarnell has been difficult to find.
In September 2005, Chapman was invited to do an interview regarding her daughter on the "Montel Williams Show." "The day that it aired, he skipped out and nobody's seen him since," Chapman said.
In hindsight, Chapman says she should have seen problems. The husband and wife had been fighting in the weeks leading up to Angie Yarnell's disappearance, Chapman said, although her daughter just blamed it on Mike Yarnell's then-recent attempt to quit smoking.
The pair met as neighbors, she said, and Mike Yarnell worked several jobs as a janitor and a floor buffer, and shared a job with his wife at a local marina. Of her son-in-law's personality: "He was, and is, by far, just the most extremely introverted man I have ever met," Chapman said.
He's done a pretty good disappearing act, Chapman said, even skipping his father's funeral. She's heard he may be in Louisiana, or Kansas, or Mexico, but she's not sure.
Chapman said she's unsure why he's been named a person of interest. Authorities have told her there's something new with the case, but haven't told her what.
The renewed interest is promising, though. She's put up a $10,000 reward, and has hopes the recently renewed hunt for her son-in-law will turn something up.
"I know there are people that know where he is," she said.
Until then, it's another round of ads in the local papers, asking for prayers to find her daughter, another round of radio shows to talk about Missouri Missing.
And one more present in the trunk.
hhooper@sedaliademocrat.com
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